SUMMER is the season of the Hollywood blockbuster, the time of year when even the duds open to $30 million–or more. To the movie honchos, summer is a sure thing. And it shows.
Where summer used to be “Jaws” and “Maverick” and “Apollo 13,” it has turned into “Godzilla” and “Independence Day” and “Wild Wild West.” The studios know that they don’t have to make good movies in order to make money during the summer. Which makes this season something of a minor miracle: It’s only June 21 (the first day of summer), and we have already seen two wonderful movies released (“About a Boy” and “Undercover Brother”). Now we have a third.
“Minority Report” was once thought of as a bit of trivia: the first pairing of our most bankable director (Steven Spielberg) and our biggest movie star (Tom Cruise). It has taken several years to come together, and at many points along the way it seemed that the deals in place would fall apart and that the story would be forever trapped in turnaround.
Somehow everything worked out. The plot, based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, is set in Washington, D.C., in the year 2054. An agency called Precrime has the ability to predict murder before it happens. Chief John Anderton (Cruise) heads the unit that tracks down and arrests precriminals–Precrime is so effective that D.C. hasn’t had a murder in six years. Everything is fine until the system tags Anderton as a future murderer.
To give more away would be unfair, but suffice it to say that everything that could go right with “Minority Report” does. The acting, across the board, is top notch, from Cruise to Samantha Morton to Timothy Blake Nelson to Neal McDonough. Colin Farrell, in a star turn as a federal agent overseeing Precrime, has the look and feel of the next Sam Jackson. (Farrell is great, but a part of me wished Ron Livingston could have landed the role. Note to Hollywood: Ron Livingston is a bona fide leading man. Give him more work.)
The effects work is also superlative, if sometimes creepy. “Minority Report” is a strong rebuke to George Lucas’s insistence that CGI establishes credibility as well as brick-and-mortar sets. Compare the look and feel of Spielberg’s Washington with any of Lucas’s cities in “Attack of the Clones” and you’ll see the difference between candy and steak.
And Spielberg triumphs over Lucas and every other sci-fi director of the last 20 years with his view of the future: His 2054 is both ambitious and coherent. The future technology in “Minority Report” all makes sense, incorporating and extending technology from today, while still letting old and new live side by side. John Anderton’s apartment is full of high-tech gizmos and lighting, but other characters still live in quaint Georgetown townhouses, where the only thing futuristic is a clock or a phone. Which makes perfect sense. Also, unlike Lucas, Spielberg has taken the time to think about how technology would work, not just how it would look. Compare their visions of traffic: In “Attack of the Clones” we saw futuristic traffic patterns where flying cars moved through the air in layers of grids. But how would that work? (In fairness to Lucas, he probably didn’t even bother to consider it, he was just ripping off Luc Besson’s “The Fifth Element.”) In “Minority Report” the futuristic cars also speed around and up and down, but we are shown how they merge into and off the freeways, how they exit for parking garages, and whatnot. These little details add up.
But the real surprise is Spielberg’s steady direction. An honest appraisal of his last 15 years shows uneven work. “Saving Private Ryan” and “Schindler’s List” are great movies. But look what else is there: “A.I.,” “Always,” “Amistad,” “Hook,” “The Lost World.” Not much of an honor roll.
“Minority Report” is a fully adult movie, different than anything he’s done before. Gone is the desire to give high-minded civics lessons. Gone is the obsession with the inner-child’s sense of wonder. Instead, he gives us a character driven movie.
Spielberg may be working on a gigantic canvas, but in many ways, “Minority Report” is a small movie. Inevitably, comparisons will be made to “Blade Runner,” but the film “Minority Report” most closely resembles is actually “L.A. Confidential.” It is, in every way, a triumph.
Jonathan V. Last is online editor of The Weekly Standard.
